How much do self-publishers on Amazon Kindle make? Especially the ones that publish only through kindle and not through any other channel.
Depends. There are people making very like and people making next to nothing. One guy I know recently self-published his first novel and made around $1000 in a month or so. I don't know what the average is.
Hi, Only Amazon would have an average figure and as far as I know they aren't reporting it. For me my figures are very up and down. Most months it's between a few hundred and few thousand bucks. In August I put out the Arcanist which coincided perfectly with Amazon's launch of Kindle Unlimited 2 and pulled in 15K. Cheers, Greg.
Hi, Only Amazon would have an average figure and as far as I know they aren't reporting it. For me my figures are very up and down. Most months it's between a few hundred and few thousand bucks. In August I put out the Arcanist which coincided perfectly with Amazon's launch of Kindle Unlimited 2 and pulled in 15K. Cheers, Greg.
Since publishing in March, I've made just over £6 on Kindle. I only have one book out, so hopefully the figures will go up with the second book.
My impression is that most people are seeing more like @ToeKneeBlack's numbers rather than @psychotick's, but that's just an impression. There are certainly some people who are doing very well. Remember to look at the net rather than the gross income, though. You need to subtract editing, cover costs, advertising, etc. before you really have a good idea of self-publishing as an income source. There are people who do ALL of that themselves, but my impression is that most of them are at the lower end of the gross income pool. This is all just impressions, though. As @psychotick said, only Amazon knows for sure.
You've published a lot of books! Congratulations. Would it be rude to ask if you're making enough to quit the day job? Your blurb on Amazon mentions a day job.
And @ToeKneeBlack , did you market your book well? Maybe with more marketing more people will buy your book?
Somewhere between $0 and $1,000,000,000. The Author Earnings report gives numbers you could use to estimate average income, but they still only cover the top few tens of thousands of writers. Edit: the other thing I would say is that Amazon change things so often that you can be selling well one month, then sell nothing the next. Between regular changes to their recommendation engine and pushing out poorly thought out subscription services, it's just not a reliable source of income unless you're a best-selling writer who can make a lot of money anywhere.
I've made about $30,000 on Kindle over the last four years. Started with two books at 99 cents each, now I have five at prices ranging from $2.99 to $6.99. I marketed them via a couple message boards I frequent and via social media. How much you make depends on your genre, how good of a writer you are and how much word of mouth you get. Certain genres perform better than others. Science fiction, particularly military science fiction, does very well for independent authors on Kindle. Fantasy can do very well also and romance does incredibly well (it's a shame I can't write it). Mystery and general fiction, not as much.
I did my own covers and editing, and spent £10 on Facebook advertising. I've published on Nook, Kobo and Smashwords, but so far haven't seen a penny in royalties from these avenues. CreateSpace has sent me £0.01 in royalties after a book was sold through their "expanded distribution" network. But so far the biggest earner has been Amazon, with just over £6 (not sure of the exact figure, I have the records at home) in royalties. I've got a second book coming out in March, so we'll see if that does anything to boost sales on any of the above channels.
Oh sorry, forgot about the covers and editing questions. I did my own covers from drawings I bought from iStock and I did all my own editing. I try to spend as little as possible on the books to maximize profit and minimize expenses. As it is, it's not a great return on the time I spent writing so I don't want to drop any money into it if I can help it.
Buying a book on Kindle is a bit of a crap-shoot. I have Amazon Prime and, so, can usually read a book before buying it. My experience is that there's some truly impressive shit out there. Sadly, there's some truly impressively shitty shit out there, too. If you want to make money self-publishing, then you have to figure out how to get consumer confidence. For that reason, talented authors who publish under one pen name and offer free previews and have a lot of books/series on Amazon are probably going to make exponentially more. Also, read this http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/the-new-world-of-publishing-making-a-living-with-your-short-fiction-updated-2013/
Hi, Definitely Maybe - the tricks are for me at least: Write the best book you can, get it beta read and edited to the best you can, get the cover and blurb done to the best level you can, and then publish and be damned. That's where you start. But the real mantra is to remember this is a marathon not a sprint. You don't write one book and done. You keep writing and over the years as you put out more and more books you build a following. There are also some do's and don'ts in this business. Don't for example write under more than one name - a pen name is fine - but it's you for life so think very carefully about it. Stick to one genre. Trilogies etc do better than singles. Novels do better than short stories. (I just wish I could stick to all those do's!) As for the other stuff - marketing etc. Don't know. It seems to me to be hit and miss.(Pretty much like writing to begin with!) Do it or don't do it, I'd rather concentrate on writing more books. Cheers, Greg.
What does everyone think of giving away a few freebies on kindle to gain an readers? (sorry if this has already been brought up and I missed it) There has been a few free stories that, after reading, I would definitely pay for there next book. They were all short stories but still it worked. Of course there have been some free ones that left but deleting their books of my kindle before I was able to finish the book as well.
I've bought books after downloading and enjoying free ones from the same author, whereas I rare bother downloading free samples of paid books. Some of them have been full novels but most have been short story collections. Not single short stories, I wouldn't bother spending the time searching and downloading for a few pages. Beware I have heard on here that short stories aren't popular with readers (no idea why, I love them) so offering a novel free might be the best strategy.